Mental health bosses in the North East say they will be working hard to ensure extra money is pledged to services that help those most in need.

It follows concerns that funding to mental health trusts has fallen in recent years.

Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, is currently having to make savings of 4% each year.

Last year, John Lawlor, chief executive of the Trust, warned “dark clouds” were looming due to the savings which the organisation was facing.

Budgets for trusts in England fell by 2% from 2013/14 to 2014/15.

The Department of Health said money given to trusts did not represent all the funding for mental health care, which is also directed through local authorities in the region, along with private sector organisations and hospital trusts themselves.

Now, a taskforce set up by NHS England said too many people with mental health issues were getting no help or inadequate care.

It set out a number of recommendations, including improving access to talking therapies and crisis care.

Ministers and health bosses immediately accepted the findings, promising to treat a million more people by 2020 with £1bn extra to tackle the problems.

This is to come out of the £8.4bn the Government has promised to the health service this Parliament and comes on top of extra money already announced for children’s services.

He said he wanted to see all those that were struggling to “get the help and support” they needed.

The extra funding was this week welcomed by Mr Lawlor, who said: “We welcome the task force report and the profile it gives to mental health.

“We will clearly be studying the report closely to ensure that the welcome promised additional money delivers better services on the ground.”

John Lawlor

Last year, Mr Lawlor admitted ongoing cuts, which have been impacting on the trust for the past five years, were taking their toll.

He said: “Sometimes delivering how long it takes to get a full package of care together for a patient is affected. Sometimes someone who has been being cared for in the community might have to come back into hospital for the care they need.

“Our staff are having to work harder and, in some cases, we are having to change the way we deliver services.

“While we are managing to address issues like these, and they are not a major problem, there are grey to black clouds on the horizon.”

Mental health care is sometimes called the Cinderella service of the NHS. Over the years it has been neglected, marginalised and under-funded. The taskforce’s report acknowledges this.

NHS England believes the strategy will help to ensure that another one million people receive support - whereas at the moment fewer than two million people do so.

Paul Farmer, the chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, who led the taskforce, said the strategy should act as a “landmark moment” for mental health care, which was currently “very patchy”.

“We are saying to the NHS, to Government, to industry, to local leaders and to the public that mental health must be a priority for everyone,” he said.

While the extra funding was crucial, he added that some stigma around mental illness “still prevails, right the way inside the health service, as it does in society”, and this needed to change.